Services
You’re carrying the weight of company culture on your shoulders.
Retention, engagement, mental health, burnout, belonging, and somehow you’re supposed to solve it all while hitting your business goals.
Most quick fixes and “workplace trends” don’t move the needle.
Which is why, organizations bring me in.
I believe the solution begins with understanding the psychology behind how we work.
Why we struggle to set boundaries.
Why uncertainty makes us anxious.
Why we tie our identities to our careers.
Why we continue repeating patterns that no longer serve us.
We continue to measure success through productivity, availability, achievement, and the ability to keep pushing. The result is a workplace full of people who are overwhelmed, anxious, disconnected, and exhausted, often believing the problem is something wrong with them.
But we also need to look at the environments where they're spending eight or more hours a day. That's where I come in.
Keynotes & Speaking
High-energy, straight-talk sessions that kickstart the shift.
No endless slide deck. Expect stories, strategies, and a room that actually engages.
I bring the TEDx energy plus two decades of clinical expertise.
Common themes
Building trust and communication across generations
Reducing costly turnover and burnout
Creating a culture of inclusion and belonging
Inspiring loyalty and growth in your youngest employees
Podcast Movement NYC 2026 | “Too Qualified to Have Fun: The Expert Podcaster's Credential-Personality Problem”
Workplace Stress & Communication Keynote | Tess Brigham
Burned Out in the Age of Everything
Poor mental health costs organizations billions of dollars a year. While burnout used to be about doing too much, today it's about adapting to a world that keeps changing the rules. Your nervous system was never designed for that pace of change. That's a different problem, and it requires a different conversation.
How to Engage Young Talent
(Gen Z 101)
When leaders understand what's underneath Gen Z behavior - the anxiety, the need for context, the search for belonging - communication improves, engagement improves, and retention improves.
Motivation Isn’t Missing. The Conditions for Motivation Are.
In this practical session on employee engagement and motivation, licensed psychotherapist and workplace mental health speaker Tess Brigham shows leaders, managers and HR teams why disengagement usually isn’t an attitude problem. She explains how chronic stress, uncertainty, lack of control and disconnection from meaningful work wear down motivation, even in capable, committed employees, and why incentives and recognition alone don’t fix it. Attendees learn the three psychological conditions that sustain motivation (safety, agency and meaning) and leave with practical strategies for building a workplace where people can stay engaged without constantly pushing themselves.
When Stress Becomes the Way We Communicate
In this interactive session on workplace communication and stress, licensed psychotherapist and workplace mental health speaker Tess Brigham shows leaders, managers and teams how anxiety fuels conflict, defensiveness, people-pleasing, avoidance and micromanagement. She explains how constant pressure and uncertainty change the way people listen, give and receive feedback, and handle difficult conversations at work. Attendees learn to recognize when stress is driving their reactions and leave with practical strategies to communicate with clarity, curiosity and intention, even under pressure.
Executive Coaching
Up until now, leaders were never expected to manage their employees’ mental health.
However, with the introduction of Gen Z in the workforce, advances in technology, and shifting landscape in a post-Pandemic world, that is no longer the case.
Give yourself and your leaders the words, tools, and confidence to actually lead.
I offer one-on-one or small-group coaching for executives, HR, and managers in the San Francisco Bay Area that specialize in coaching leaders on managing younger employees.
We’ll focus on what’s really happening in your workplace: miscommunication, unspoken stress, and the disconnect between good intentions and results.
Great for CEOs, CHROs, HR leaders, front-line managers
Typical outcomes
Managers stop avoiding tough conversations and start having productive ones
Less conflict across generations, more clarity and trust
Leaders move from reaction mode to confident, human-centered leadership
Team Workshops
Team Workshops in the San Francisco Bay Area (also available virtually)
Tess Brigham, a licensed psychotherapist and workplace mental health speaker, leads interactive 2–3 hour corporate workshops on burnout, workplace stress, communication, employee engagement and managing multiple generations of employees.
Each workshop is direct and designed for immediate impact. Participants practice new skills during the session and leave knowing exactly what to do next. These trainings are a good fit for leadership teams, managers, HR and people teams, and organizations looking for workplace mental health programs that change how people work, not just how they feel for an afternoon.
Practical, hands-on trainings that stick.
Workshops are 2-3 hour interactive, direct, and designed for immediate impact. Your people will practice, apply, and leave knowing exactly what to do next.
Popular workshops
Burned Out in the Age of Everything
When Stress Becomes the Way We Communicate
How to Engage Young Talent (Gen Z 101)
Motivation Isn’t Missing. The Conditions for Motivation Are.
Strategic Advisory & Consulting
Keep momentum. Don’t slide back to “the way we’ve always done it.”
Ongoing partnership for HR and leadership to stay aligned, adapt policies, and keep culture shifts moving forward.
Format
Monthly retainer
Real-time reviews of language, policy, or messaging before rollout
Standing office hours for your people team
If a trend could fix this, it would have by now. Let’s get to the root.
I’ll dig into how younger employees actually experience your culture and pinpoint what’s working, what’s not, and what will make the biggest difference fast.
Scope may include:
Listening sessions + shadowing
Quick-hit surveys + policy/communication review
Leadership debrief (what’s helping, what’s hurting)
90-day Retention Roadmap with owners, scripts, and metrics
Why Leaders Choose Tess
Therapy-backed expertise. 20+ years as a licensed therapist, coach, and consultant in San Francisco Bay, CA.
Real-world tested. Everything comes from actual conversations with Gen Z. Not theory.
Warm and direct. I’ll tell you the truth, without judgment, and give you tools you can use right away.
How It Works
①
Book a
Consultation
Share what’s happening. We start with a consultation call to hear what’s really going on.
②
Start Small
& Strategic
Often with a high-impact workshop or diagnostic. Quick wins first.
③
Build a Culture That Lasts
Scale with coaching, roadmaps,
and advisory that lock in long-term change.